1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a textile printing apparatus and a textile printing method for performing a printing onto a fabric, i.e., a printed textile material, by means of an ink jet method or the like.
2. Related Art
There have been known some ink jet textile printing apparatuses which perform a printing of a desired image onto the surface of a fabric, such as a T-shirt, by causing a textile print head thereof to eject a plurality of color inks onto the surface of the fabric (for example, refer to JP-A-2005-103791).
In order to prevent the occurrence of printing failures due to the lack of ink, these ink jet textile printing apparatus are each provided with ink remaining amount detection sensors for detecting the remaining amounts of corresponding color inks. Further, such an ink jet textile printing apparatus is configured to, when any one of the ink remaining amount detection sensors has detected the insufficiency of the remaining amount of the corresponding color ink, suspend all printings to be performed afterwards without any consideration of the colors of inks to be used in the printings.
Moreover, the ink jet textile printing apparatus is configured to, upon detection of the insufficiency of the remaining amount of the ink, prompt users to replace an ink cartridge corresponding to the ink whose remaining amount is insufficient by indicating an error message for notifying the insufficiency of the remaining amount of the ink.
Meanwhile, there have been also provided some large-scaled ink jet textile printing apparatuses which are configured to, in order to prevent the occurrence of printing suspension situations due to errors such as the lack of ink, be provided with two sets of set trays arranged in the width direction of the apparatus body thereof, and further be independently provided two sets of printing execution units. Further, these two sets of printing execution units include textile print heads and carriages therefor which individually perform printings onto two sheets of printed textile materials set on the two sets of set trays on the basis of printing specifications corresponding to the two sheets of printed textile materials, respectively (for example, refer to JP-A-2009-101592).
However, the above-described textile printing apparatuses disclosed in JP-A-2005-103791 and JP-A-2009-101592 have been configured such that, even when the insufficiency of the remaining amount of ink has occurred with respect to just some of the inks, all printings are suspended, and any printing to be executed by the printing execution unit is not resumed until at least the completion of replacements of ink cartridges corresponding to the inks whose remaining amounts are insufficient.
For example, in the ink jet textile printing apparatus disclosed in JP-A-2009-101592, under the state where, regarding one set tray, a printing specification is set, and it specifies that a T-shirt having a white background is set thereon, and an image printing using color inks is directly executed thereonto; while, regarding the other set tray, another printing specification is set, and it specifies that a T-shirt having a color background is set thereon, a background printing using a white color is executed thereonto, and subsequently, an image printing using color inks is executed onto the resultant background, when the insufficiency of the remaining amount of the white color has been found at the start of executing the printings, as a result, all printings including the printing regarding the one set tray, which does not use the white color, are suspended.
Therefore, there has been a disadvantage in that the operational efficiency of textile printings is reduced to a degree equivalent to that resulting from not executing a printing regarding the T-shirt having a white background, which is set on the one set tray, and onto which the printing can be executed even if the remaining amount of the white color ink is insufficient.